


Hold Me Thight

by Myrime



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Hidden Injury, Hurt Tony Stark, Injury, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Protective Steve Rogers, Team as Family, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27079150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myrime/pseuds/Myrime
Summary: During a battle, Tony is injured by getting stabbed with a piece of his own armour. He hides it, of course he does, because he always dealt with these things alone. He has not counted on JARVIS and the bots ratting him out, however, and much less on Steve actually rushing to his side. Maybe he's more a part of the team than he thought.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 32
Kudos: 310
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Hold Me Thight

**Author's Note:**

> For Whumptober 2020 Day 6: "Get it out"
> 
> Enjoy!

Once the doors of the workshop close behind Tony, breathing gets that much harder. Away from prying eyes, he does not have to stand so tall anymore, does not have to concentrate on making well-timed quips and generally live up to the _invincible_ part of his name. He does not have to pretend he is one wrong movement away from passing out. Right now, there is only quiet, the flashing red of the alarm inside the HUD, and the pulsing pain in his abdomen, threatening to overwhelm him. 

Tony is not quite sure what hit him. The outside of the suit looks fine – apart from the obvious dents, but it does not have any glaring holes in it. They were fighting a group of AIM soldiers, but they did not seem to be particularly well-equipped. Although Tony has to admit that a few spectacularly devastating things have come out of their lab before. So, they either created a missile able to penetrate the suit without leaving much trace on the outside, or Tony almost killed himself with his own creation again by leaving exploitable weak points.

It does not matter. He is not dead and now that he is home he can sit down and sleep this off. Nobody has to know and once his brain is not flushed by adrenaline anymore, he can try to reinforce the places where the suit has failed him.

Taking as deep a breath as the pain allows, Tony takes a step forward. He will not have gained anything from collapsing right inside the door to the workshop. It is agony. Every little movement sends new shocks through his body until it feels like he is burning. The flashing red inside the HUD intensifies as if Tony does not notice he has a serious problem right now. But there is a first-aid kit stashed somewhere and he is already halfway to the assembly station. While Tony would like nothing more than to lie down and sleep for a week or two, he needs to get the suit off first. He opens the face plate, relieved at the sudden lack of flashing red.

Another step, and JARVIS pipes up, sounding at once too formal and too urgent. His kid is worried. “Sir, if I might advise you to –”

“I won’t go to medical for a scratch,” Tony cuts him off and tries to put some authority in his tone, which is hampered by how little air he manages to get into his lungs.

“That scratch comes from a piece of your suit that has pierced your skin and runs approximately three inches deep,” JARVIS reports as if he thinks words will make Tony see reason. After an expectant pause, he adds, “With a considerable piece of metal still inside you.”

Bless modern technology, Tony thinks. What does he need the medical team for when his AI can diagnose him just as well, if not better? JARVIS knows him and does not needlessly prod him only to arrive at a conclusion Tony knew beforehand. 

What a way to go, though, impaled on his own suit. The press would certainly call it poetic justice, and Tony might be inclined to agree with them. He does not plan on dying, though. A lot of trouble is still ahead of them and the team still needs him if they want to stand a chance against the army closing in on them from space.

With a last shaking step, Tony gets on the platform and steadies himself by grabbing one of the robotic arms. “Well, then we need to get it out.”

Tony does not need a medical doctorate to know that is not the best of ideas, not without proper preparation. He believes in JARVIS’ abilities, though.

“Let me alert someone at least,” JARVIS all but pleads. “Dr. Banner –”

“- is not that kind of doctor. Weren’t you listening to him?” Tony asks and manages half a smile. He knows perfectly well that Bruce would be put out if he ever found out Tony refused to call him in for help, no matter his constant protest that they have trained professionals for that.

“And yet he’s more proficient at stitching people back together than you are,” JARVIS argues, sounding like he is one wrong word away from open rebellion.

“He’s not more proficient at stitching _me_ back together, though.” And that, in Tony’s opinion, is the absolute truth. He does not make it easy on people – or AIs – he knows, but he takes care of himself and tries not to be too much of a problem for other people. That is just human decency. Especially considering how many issues he has.

“Sir.”

When JARVIS resorts to quiet disapproval, Tony almost feels bad, but he is too miserable to let anybody else in. “It’s okay, JARVIS, I’ll be right as rain in a minute.” He just hopes they will not be called out for another mission any time soon. The pain might get better once the metal is out, but he will still have a hole in his side, which will make moving, much less fighting, a tad difficult. “Now, get the suit off.”

The robotic arms stay still and Tony thinks for the thousandth time that he needs to create a better system for that. A suit of armour is nice to have, but he needs an easier way to get out of it without ruining the suit than stepping on the platform in his workshop and hoping that his AI is in the mood to indulge him.

“It’s highly inadvisable to just rip out the piece of metal inside you.” If JARVIS had a foot, Tony is sure he would stomp angrily.

“I’m sure that’s still better than leaving it in,” Tony answers, trying to remain standing. “I don’t have the best of immune systems, if you remember.” He pats the arc reactor gently.

Tony is half-convinced that JARVIS is playing for time. The longer he waits, the more likely it is that Tony will collapse, and then he will not have any other choice but to call for help. Well, that only makes Tony fight harder to stay conscious. Worse than handing himself over to medical is being handed over while he does not know what is happening to him.

“At least get the rest of it off,” he suggests, wondering why his kids have to be so stubborn.

Nothing happens for another long moment. Then the machine whirs to life, slower than usual. Tony is sure JARVIS works as gently as he can and yet the process hurts. The removal jostles him, pressing against bruises and the pulsing wound in his abdomen. Waves of black roll through Tony’s vision and it is all he can do to stay upright.

When the chest plate is lifted, the dented pieces cling to each other, tugging on Tony’s abdomen in a way that has hot red pain shooting through him, making his knees buckle. JARVIS catches him with the robotic arms, the chest plate clattering carelessly to the ground.

“I really must insist –” JARVIS’ voice sounds from far away, barely audible over the ringing in Tony’s ears.

Still, Tony shakes his head, or maybe the world is just spinning in front of him. He is not sure what is happening anymore. Then familiar beeping reaches him as JARVIS has the robotic arms deliver him into the fretful hold of DUM-E.

“Hey there, buddy,” Tony mutters. It ends in a groan as a chair is pushed against the backs of his knees and he involuntarily falls into it. Manhandled by his own kids. It is probably for the best. Even sitting down, it is hard to stay upright instead of falling right down to the floor.

This is okay, he tells himself over and over again. A mantra to cling to. He has had worse. It just hurts. Looking down at himself, he sees the dented piece of the suit. It is not even bleeding much.

“I am sure you are aware it will _start_ bleeding the moment you try to move that piece.”

Sluggishly, Tony blinks up at the ceiling, wondering when JARVIS learned to read his mind. That could come in handy – at least when JARVIS is not admonishing him.

“I must insist you allow me to call someone,” JARVIS goes on, sounding almost frantic now.

Tony wonders whether he really looks that bad. It almost feels okay now. The pain is dulled, almost like a second heartbeat. He could just go to sleep and wake up when everything is over.

“Just get it out,” Tony says. He is tired and just wants to get this over with. Sitting up straighter despite the pain, Tony clarifies, “Butterfingers, get the firs-aid kit. U, hold me. And DUM-E, get it out.”

This is probably not the best task to give to DUM-E, whose motor control is leagues behind Butterfingers’, but he is Tony’s oldest and least likely to rebel, if only because Tony never programmed any common sense into him.

Closing his eyes, Tony grabs the sides of the chair and braces himself for more pain – only nothing happens, nothing even moves. He glints and finds all his bots looking at him, DUM-E at least with an air of shame.

“JARVIS,” Tony bites out between clenched teeth. He does not have the energy to do everything himself. “Could you _please_ not keep the bots from doing what I tell them to do?”

“My first priority is your well-being, sir,” JARVIS answers stiffly.

“And that means getting this damned metal spike out of my body, yes?” Tony snaps and glares at his bots.

“In a safe manner. I will not watch you bleed out right in front of me.”

If Tony were in less pain, he might acknowledge the trace of fear in JARVIS’ voice, but he does not have many alternatives to dealing with these things himself. There is no way he could go to Medical without the rest of the team finding out and they do not need the reminder that Tony is just a rather squishy human in a tin can. He does not know how Clint does it, who always comes out of fights with scrapes and bruises, unenhanced as he is. But Steve does not doubt his abilities as much as he does Tony’s.

“I won’t –”

Tony is interrupted by the door opening – which should not happen because he is sure that he ordered a complete lockdown. He always does when he comes home injured or when he needs to repair some serious damage done to the armour.

Drained and weary, he is unable to react quickly, does not even manage to really straighten in the chair. When he tries, fire spreads through his abdomen that has him flinch, unsettling his entire balance. It is all he can do not to slide right to the ground. And thus, barely hanging on to consciousness – and the last scraps of his dignity – Tony has to watch Captain America himself hurry into his workshop, his face already drawn into an unhappy frown. 

This is it, he guesses. He does not have the energy for another shouting match about all the things he has done wrong, so he will likely say something unforgiveable just to get it over with or pass out. In Tony’s head, there is no way this will end with him still on the team. Irresponsible as he is, endangering the actually useful members of the team – he can already see where this is going. 

“Cap, to what do I owe the honour?” Even to his own ears, Tony sounds strained, and his lips feel ready to crack when he pulls them into an estimate of a grin. It is a poor attempt at keeping up appearances, but Tony is too much of a Stark not to try.

Steve’s face grows considerably darker. “Don’t waste your energy, Tony. What were you thinking?”

These words should warrant a harsher voice and yet there is something careful to the way Steve moves. He comes closer, the bots getting out of his way without a fuss, and studies the way Tony is curled around the last piece of armour on his body.

“I thought we’d all take a nice post-mission shower and then meet up for dinner,” Tony says conversationally, doing his best to pretend Steve cannot see his shame. He is offering them an out. It would be easy for Steve to nod and leave, to let Tony himself deal with this mess. That is not how this works, however.

Steve looks like he will start yelling any minute now, and the familiarity of it relaxes Tony a bit, despite the pain. Some things will never change, and Steve’s disapproval of him and everything he does is one of them.

Then, Steve seems to think better of it and steps even closer, crouching down right in front of Tony. He reaches out as if to touch Tony’s side but his hand keeps hovering over the dented piece of armour.

“How bad is it?” Steve asks in a clinical tone.

Before Tony can even open his mouth to answer something dismissive, JARVIS speaks up, making him feel like he has been deemed unworthy to be a part of this conversation any longer.

“My preliminary scan shows that no vital organs or large blood vessels were hit, but there was considerable blood loss. Which will get worse when we try to mobilize the piece of the armour.” JARVIS sounds just as disapproving as Steve and in his haziness, Tony can just imagine the old Jarvis coming back from the dead only to appear right next to Steve, watching him with the same pinched expression.

In response, Steve pulls away his hand as if burned, as if his mere proximity might do more damage. Tony might be imagining things, though, since black is creeping in on his vision until he sees everything around him as if through a long dark tunnel.

“What hit him?” Steve asks, still with that worry.

Once again, Tony is too slow to keep the catastrophe from unravelling, and has to listen to JARVIS say, “It was blunt force that pushed parts of the suit inside Sir.” The honorific feels like a terrible mockery, considering that JARVIS is blurting out how irresponsible Tony was. What if he got a teammate hurt because he put himself out of commission and could not be there to help? “It is a stability issue of the seams that has been ignored in favour of more manoeuvrability.”

The glare Steve sends at Tony is enough to make his pulse race from more than the pain. They will have an argument about this later, Tony knows, and it will be ugly. If he is not thrown off the team altogether. Certain weak points have to be accepted if he wants to remain at peak usefulness. He is not sure where the difference is to Clint jumping off buildings every opportunity he gets without confirming someone is close by to catch him. The purely human members of the team have to take some risks at times – and they usually deal with it just fine.

Tony looks at where he knows one of JARVIS’ cameras is located and mouths, “Traitor.” Then he pushes himself away from Steve only to have the chair collide with Butterfingers, who is still right behind him. The unexpected jostling drives a whimper to his lips that he is too slow to swallow. He closes his eyes in shame, wishing this was just a bad dream.

“All right,” Steve says as if he has only just made up his mind about what he will do. “Can we move him to Medical or do we need to get a team here?”

“I’m perfectly fine with –” Tony bites out, his voice coming out much quieter than he wanted. It does not even surprise him anymore when he is ignored.

“I advise not to move Sir too much, although the piece should be removed in a sterile environment,” JARVIS says, no doubt thinking of Tony’s suppressed immune system. He has dealt just fine with that before. He does not need them to hold his hand through something he has done by himself a thousand times.

“Let’s get him a stretcher, then,” Steve decides and gets to his feet, although he keeps hovering over Tony as if he is just waiting for him to fall.

It is too much. The pain, the impending doom of Steve telling him he has outlived his usefulness, people deciding over his head what to do with him – Tony has enough.

“I’m not an invalid, damn it,” he snaps, glaring at Steve with all the energy he has left. “I can speak for myself and I can walk if I have to. I just fought a battle with you.”

Perhaps he should not have reminded them of the fight because Steve’s expression falls at that before settling into another frown.

“While injured,” he replies shortly. “That alone makes me doubt your mental capacity at the moment.”

This is so unfair. If Tony had bowed out of the fight just because of a scratch, he would have gotten a lecture about abandoning his team. Now that he kept on fighting, he is called irresponsible. Tony always knew that Captain America would disapprove of him but this is like dealing with Howard all over again and being unable to ever do anything right.

“Cap,” Tony tries but is cut off harshly.

“Don’t test me right now, Tony. I will not lose one of my team to his stubbornness. It’s bad enough that you didn’t tell anyone you are hurt.” The words do not quite fit the stormy expression. Then again, Steve has that helper syndrome where even losing just Tony would make him feel bad. “Why would you insist on going through this alone?”

The question hangs in the air between them for a minute, leaving Tony stunned with the desperate note clinging to the words. Then, Steve turns around abruptly and brings some distance between them before snapping at the air, “Where are you, Bruce? We need a med team up here immediately.”

Still stunned by the outburst, Tony is glad that Steve’s attention is not on him anymore. Otherwise, he might have just made a rather embarrassing admission like _What if you decide to throw me off the team if you’re reminded how easily I’m hurt?_ or, worse, _It’s better to hide than to find out nobody cares._

Tony does not believe that last thing, not really. He might not be a full-fledged member of the team, but they would care and they would help. Some lessons are hard to unlearn, however, and Tony has never been allowed to be vulnerable before.

“Steve,” Tony says, although he is not sure how to continue. He feels the urge to thank Steve. For coming. For not starting to yell immediately.

He does not come that far, however, because Steve whirls around to him and cuts him off. “No, I don’t want to hear any stupid excuses.”

That is more like it. Disappointment wars with relief in Tony’s chest. In the end, the familiar scorn is better than treading into the unknown and hoping for things to change. So, Tony swallows the words rising up in his throats and leans back in the chair. This time, he is prepared for the pain and keeps his face impassive. He is getting tired of this, and since his input is apparently not needed, he might as well close his eyes for a moment and get some rest.

“Tony? Are you –” A few hurried steps and Tony feels Steve right back at his side, sounding worried again. “I mean, is it getting worse?”

Tony is not sure. The pain is bearable when he does not move. His thoughts are very slow, which is not at all what he is used to, but that could just be the exhaustion.

“I’m fine,” he says because what else is there to do? “Everything’s fine.”

He keeps his eyes closed, does not want to see Steve, does not want to face reality at the moment. The darkness is pulling him under and he does not fight it. What for? Help is on the way, JARVIS and Steve will not let him do anything on his own. Might as well pass out and not have to face the fear of other people’s hands all over him.

“Stay with me, Tony,” Steve’s voice sounds from a distance.

That sounds like a bad idea. Staying with Steve means shame and arguments. No, he will stay like this and do his best to miss all the excitement. He might not like things happening to him that he is not fully aware of but it sounds nice to wake up once everything is over and he is alone again. He could –

Pain shoots through him, more acute than before, that makes him snap up his head and blink against the sudden light. He is not sitting in his workshop anymore. Instead, he is lying down, tight straps over his chest and legs, and the ceiling is flying by. Panic rises in him and he does not have any energy left to fight it.

“We’re here, Tony,” Bruce’s voice reaches him, calm and familiar, right before his face appears like a dark blob above Tony.

Only a second later, Steve shows up on the other side. “They’ll take care of you.”

“Don’t –” Tony says, but his mouth is too dry to continue.

_Don’t watch_ , he means. _Don’t let them take out my heart. Don’t let them put another battery in me._

“We’ll stay with you,” Steve says and it sounds like a promise, like he understands Tony’s fear, although they have never talked about his time in that cave. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Those two things are not the same, Tony wants to point out, but darkness comes creeping back in from the corners of his vision.

“Hold –” _you to that,_ he wants to say.

Instead, the last thing he feels before unconsciousness claims him is something grabbing his hand and holding on tight.

* * *

When Tony wakes up, he is in his room. At first, he thinks he dreamt up all the excitement, his fantasy spurred into motion by blood loss and exhaustion. Some part of his incorrigible heart keeps wishing to be saved, no matter how much he fights it.

Then he hears the familiar beeping of a heart monitor and feels the pressure of bandages around his abdomen. That alone is a clear indicator he got outside help. If he had done this one his own, DUM-E would have gotten tangled up in the bandages until Tony decided a band aid would have to be enough. And he would have passed out in the workshop. Maybe he would have gotten to the couch. But his bed? Never.

Shame wells up inside him, but he stomps down on it. There is no use in dwelling on something he cannot change anymore. Now, he must soldier on and deal with the consequences.

When Tony opens his eyes fully and looks around, he is greeted by the strangest sight. On the sides of his bed sit Bruce and Steve, both asleep and looking like they would desperately need a bed of their own. Worse, Steve is still in his uniform, which means he really has not left Tony’s side since finding him in the workshop.

That thought does strange things to Tony’s stomach, which he cannot dully blame on his hole in his abdomen. He distantly remembers them promising they would stay with him, but that is just what people tell those who are injured and would rather jump off the rood of the tower than get actual, medical help. They were not meant to actually do that.

Opening his mouth, Tony means to clear his throat, to say something, to send them off to bed. Before he can get a single sound over his lips, however, his eyes fall on his hand. Specifically, his hand that is held by Steve.

_Oh._ Tony’s mind is blank, wondering what to make of that.

As it is, the lights around him dim a bit more, just enough to catch Tony’s attention. JARVIS, then, telling him that everything is all right – and probably admonishing him to shut up and let things be.

Later, Tony will blame it on exhaustion, but he complies without a second thought. With one last glance at their intertwined hands, Tony closes his eyes.

Maybe he is not in as much trouble as he thought. Or, in any case, a different kind than expected.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
